Month: October 2016

However the white leaders of an armed group who seized a national wildlife refuge in rural Oregon were acquitted of charges in the 41-day standoff that brought new attention to a long-running dispute over control of federal lands in the U.S. West.

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The Nevada Legislature is meeting in special legislative session to consider public financing for a football stadium and convention center upgrades in Las Vegas.

The proposal to be considered by lawmakers is an increase in Clark County room taxes to help fund a $1.9 billion domed football stadium and $1.4 billion expansion and upgrades to the Las Vegas Convention Center.

The proposed 65,000-seat dome facility planned as the new home of the National Football League’s Oakland Raiders would also serve as home turf for UNLV’s football team.

Raiders owner Mark Davis has pledged to bring the team to Las Vegas if the stadium is built and other league owners agree.

An NFL owners meeting is scheduled Oct. 18.

The room tax increase would finance $750 million in general obligation bonds over 33 years. Las Vegas Sands Corp. Chairman and CEO Sheldon Adelson has pledged $650 million toward the deal. The Raiders have committed $500 million.

But lobbying will be intense.

Nevada’s powerful labor unions love the deal. Across the street from the Legislature building, a huge banner was erected sponsored by Laborers Union Local 872. “Nevada jobs build the stadium and the Raiders will come,” the banner reads, with a large Raiders logo in one corner and a depiction of the stadium in the other.

The union says the projects will create thousands of construction jobs in Southern Nevada, a region hit hard by the Great Recession.

Some lawmakers expressed concerns about the size and appropriateness of the public subsidy.

Losers at the Nevada Taxpayers Association and Nevadans for the Common Good have publicly opposed the stadium project.